Some are celebrating Canada’s government “indefinitely suspending” legalizing euthanasia for mental illness as a great victory for life. Not me.
Let me explain. Of course, I am gratified that mental illness will not become grounds for being killed in 2027 as was scheduled. But note: In announcing the suspension, the government mooted legislation likely to pass that would have permanently outlawed killing for mental illness. Moreover, “indefinite” can mean years — or a month. So, it’s not a matter of principle.
But here’s the kicker. The government is now promoting euthanasia for people with dementia. From the Global News story:
[Justice Minister Sean] Fraser also said the government will “grant access to medical assistance in dying to people who have provided consent at a time when they still have capacity but know that they have been diagnosed with an illness that will take that capacity from them subsequently.”
This is sometimes referred to as “advance directive” or “advance request” in medical parlance. It often involves a competent person making a written request for MAID, with the intention that it would be honoured later, if and when they lose the capacity to make the decision for themselves: for example, in people suffering from worsening Alzheimer’s or dementia.
Once this proposal is law, people will be able to order themselves killed in the future when they reach a particular point of incapacity. And they wouldn’t be able to change their minds once they became incompetent because they would no longer be legally entitled to make their own care decisions. So, even if they were happy, not suffering, and now wanting to live, they would still be lethally injected.
This is already the law in the Netherlands and Belgium, and it has led to a horrific story. One Dutch woman signed such a document. When she repeatedly refused the lethal jab after becoming incompetent, the doctor drugged her coffee and started the termination. The patient woke up and struggled against the procedure. The doctor instructed the family to hold her down and completed the killing. Of course, a court later found the doctor not guilty of any crime.
Dementia patients are the next target of the culture of death, with advocacy increasing to include such people in the killable caste. Euthanasia activists already push VSED — suicide by self-starvation — for patients so diagnosed and even want caregivers forced to refuse their patients food and water if the person had so ordered when competent. Once that idea is accepted by society, lethal injections will soon follow because it will be seen as more humane.
So, I am not surprised that Canada’s leaders decided to shift their focus from the mentally ill — which caused a pushback — to cognitively incapacitated patients as euthanasia’s next big expansion. Many are terrified of dementia, so I suspect they believe it will be a lighter lift. And think of the money in health-care resources that will be saved!